Olympia’s Centennial Station is staffed by (usually) elderly volunteers who love trains and who love helping travelers. Built in 1993 after six years of fund-raising in the local community, the train platform is laden with metallic plaques with the names of contributors. So many are couples. To me, the plaques are very moving.

Everything about this train station is right: The seats are comfortable; the vending machines have coffee, juice, pop, peanuts, and Cheese-Its at inexpensive prices; there are plugs everywhere; and the Wi-Fi never flutters.

My favourite part of the station is the clock outside. I have often stood in the rain just to stare at it. Unlike many of my students, I have very little vocabulary to describe design (a professional nuisance, alas). But I think I “get” this clock. It looks strong; it looks old-fashioned. Trains are strong and old-fashioned, but they are neither obsolescent nor obsolete. Their design is simple and beautiful.

Children were historically excluded from post-separation decision-making, because of the assumption that children lacked the “legal and psychological capacity” to participate in decisions and that insulating children from the decision-making process would somehow protect them from the turmoil of divorce. But these were not the only reasons children were left out of the post-separation conversation. In accordance with the old adages “father/mother knows best”, “[a] related assumption was that parents know what is in their child’s best interests, and children’s views would, therefore, be adequately represented by their parents.”

Studies show that these assumptions are false; in fact, “children’s meaningful participation in decision-making can reduce the negative affects of family breakdown” and “often promotes their social well-being.” Empirical findings suggest that children want to have a “voice” in the processes that “fundamentally affect their lives,” and that not listening to children’s voices “may do more harm than good.” Accordingly, there has been an increase in developments aimed at promoting the “voice of the child” in family law processes.

Recognition and respect for the “voice of the child” has evolved not merely as a value-added phenomenon, but from a social recognition of children as “rights-bearing individuals rather than as merely objects of concern or subjects of decisions.” [footnotes included in full article]

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I had always found eHarmony Inc.‘s advertisements vaguely disconcerting: too optimistic about romance, and too confident about its vaunted heuristic (the “Relationship Questionnaire”!).

An advertisement currently in frequent rotation on television promises viewers that “You can start communicating for free today” – a trademarked phrase (of course). This advertisement is specifically disconcerting. The company is presenting a birthright as a corporate gift.

A portmanteau is a type of luggage with two separate sections. A portmanteau word is formed by combining the sounds and meanings of two different words. Linguists also call such a word a blend.

Most portmanteaus merge the initial part of one word with the end of another: smog (smoke + fog) and infomercial (information + commercial). Others combine one complete word with part of another: docudrama (documentary + drama) and palimony (pal + alimony). Sometimes words with the same sounds are combined to create a pun: shampagne (sham + champagne). …